On the 29th of this month, NVIDIA will launch its newest graphics card SKU, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores. We got our first sniff of it last month. Today we present to you all the specifications that matter: clock speeds, voltages, device IDs, etc., but first a brief history. NVIDIA launched the original GeForce GTX 560 Ti back in January, based on its spanking new GF114 silicon. It packed 384 CUDA cores, a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, 1 GB of memory, high clock speeds, and fairly decent overclocking potential. AMD's Radeon HD 6870 was "pwned" (NVIDIA's words). But then, AMD managed to work closely with its partners to create a 1 GB version of its Radeon HD 6950 graphics card. Coupled with diligent component cost balancing, AMD was able to neuter GTX 560 Ti to a good extant. With the upcoming winter shopping season, NVIDIA does not want to take any chances with its competitiveness in the $250-ish "sweetspot" segment, and hence it had to redesign the GTX 560 Ti.

The new GeForce GTX 560 Ti will come with "448 Cores" brand extension, and as it suggests, the GPU now has 448 CUDA cores as opposed to 384 cores on the original. The new SKU will use the same silicon on which the GTX 570, GTX 580, and dual-GPU GTX 590 are based: GF110. The chip will carry the marking "GF110-270-A1". Apart from the 448 CUDA cores, the new SKU will have a memory bus width of 320-bit, and standard memory amount of 1280 MB, just like the GTX 570. The GTX 560 Ti Core 448 has clock speeds of 732 MHz core, 1464 MHz CUDA cores or shaders, and 950 MHz actual (1900 MHz DDR, or 3.80 GHz GDDR5 effective) memory clock speed. So the only thing that sets the new GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores from GTX 570 is the CUDA core count (448 vs. 480 on the GTX 570).

SAPPHIRE Technology - the world leading supplier of graphics solutions, mainboards and other PC products - has just announced the SAPPHIRE HD 6950 TOXIC Edition, the fastest production card in its class.

The SAPPHIRE HD 6950 TOXIC Edition ships with clock speeds of 880MHz for the core and 1300Mhz (5.2 Gb/sec effective) for the memory making it the fastest production HD 6950 on the market. This has been achieved by building the card on a high specification PCB with digital VRMs for excellent power regulation and 8 + 6 pin power connectors. It has a high performance cooler featuring a Vapor Chamber, blower fan and a new perforated backplate to increase airflow out of the system case.

Sapphire designed a new AMD Cayman-based graphics card that's intended for sweet-spot SKUs such as Radeon HD 6950 1 GB. Seen here is one such card with the HD 6950 GPU. It uses an in-house blue PCB design with cost-effective components. The card is cooled by a custom-design dual-fan heatsink that uses a heat pipe-fed aluminum fin array. The fan speed is kept very low, making the card silent. The very same fan is used on Sapphire's single-fan cooler used on certain HD 6800 series graphics cards, that earned the reputation of being very quiet. It's unclear if Sapphire's card is factory-overclocked, or a base-model that's cheaper than AMD reference design models. Like many board partners, Sapphire will bundle a copy (paper license) of Dirt 3, with its new HD 6950.

One of PowerColor's various non-reference design graphics card lines, the Vortex Edition, made its debut in June 2010, with the PowerColor HD 5770 Vortex Edition. The selling point of Vortex is the cooler fan, which is user-adjustable to an extent. PowerColor decided to roll out another Vortex Edition graphics card any time soon, this time it's the more popular high-end GPU, the Radeon HD 6950. In all likelihood, the PowerColor HD 6950 Vortex doesn't have anything new in terms of PCB design, it probably reuses the PCS+ PCB, but the innovations are held with the cooler.

The Vortex edition cooler uses two 80 mm fans, which are suspended on circular frames that are threaded and locked into the cooler shroud like screws. By twisting the fan frame, the user can adjust the distance between each fan and the heatsink below, thereby adjusting the fan's air-flow. If PowerColor's internal research (backed by thermal images) is to go by, the design helped increase cooling performance in case of the HD 5770 Vortex. Pulling the fan frames out comes at the expense of eating into clearance for the adjacent addon card, and that gives the user a level of control over the cooling performance. At this point, the clock speeds are not known. It's likely that PowerColor releases both 1GB and 2GB variants.

If you think HIS is going to slow down after the launch of the World's Fastest HIS 6870 IceQ X Turbo X, you would be wrong. Today, Hightech Information System is delighted to announce the World's Fastest HD6950: HIS 6950 IceQ X Turbo X and his brothers, HIS 6950 IceQ X Turbo and HIS 6950 IceQ X standard version, to its IceQ X Family.

HD3D Stereoscopic Technology
HD3D technology transmits two separate images to each of your eyes at the same time at a resolution beyond 1080p. Supported with HD3D glasses, this technological innovation comes with Stereo 3D gaming, Blu-ray 3D, 3rd Party Stereo 3D middleware software and 6900 Series GPU support.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced the SAPPHIRE HD 6950 Flex Edition, bringing a new level of gaming performance to the company's unique solution for multi-screen gaming. Most graphics cards based on AMD technology require the third monitor in an Eyefinity set-up to be a DisplayPort monitor, or connected with an active DisplayPort Adapter. The SAPPHIRE FleX family can support three DVI monitors in Eyefinity mode and deliver a true SLS (Single Large Surface) work area without the need for costly active adapters. The first two monitors are connected to the two DVI ports and the third to an HDMI to DVI cable (supplied) with no extra hardware required.

Sapphire is readying a new non-reference design AMD Radeon HD 6950 2 GB graphics card that boasts of superior out of the box display connectivity to the reference design. Called the Sapphire HD 6950 FleX Edition, the card features the same exact display output connector configuration as the reference design (two each of DVI and mini-DisplayPort 1.2, along with HDMI 1.4a), but can run a 5-monitor Eyefinity setup, of which three can run over DVI without needing an active adapter. The package might include a number of dongles and cables to help set up such a display array. Even if not for gaming, Sapphire sees professional applications for such a setup.

The Radeon HD 6950 is based on the 40 nm Cayman GPU, it has 1408 VLIW4 stream processors, and connects to 2 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface. Sapphire's card uses a non-reference design PCB and cooling assembly. The PCB draws power from two 6-pin power connectors; the cooler makes use of a large heatsink, ventilated by a central 80 mm fan. The card can pair with three more Radeon HD 6900 series graphics cards in CrossFireX. Expect Sapphire to release the card to market soon.

MSI is ready with a new Radeon HD 6950 2 GB graphics card that makes use of the company's new Twin Frozr III cooling assembly. The R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition from MSI makes use of a custom-design PCB with strong, overclocker-friendly VRM circuitry, out of the box overclock speeds of 850 MHz core and 1300 MHz (5200 MHz effective) GDDR5 memory speeds, against reference speeds of 800/1250 MHz. The Twin Frozr III cooler makes use of a dense aluminum fin array to which heat is conveyed by a number of nickel-plated copper heat pipes, and is ventilated by two 80 mm fans that use "propeller-design" fan blades that deliver higher air-flow at lower noise outputs.

Based on the 40 nm Cayman silicon, Radeon HD 6950 packs 1408 VLIW4 stream processors, is DirectX 11 compliant, and makes use of a high-speed GDDR5 memory controller with 256-bit bus width. Display output connectors include two DVI, two mini-DisplayPort 1.2, and one HDMI 1.4a. AMD-exclusive technologies such as Eyefinity and HydraVision are supported. The card can pair with up to three more Radeon HD 6900 series GPUs for 4-way CrossFireX multi-GPU operation. MSI's new Radeon HD 6950 2 GB Twin Frozr III Power Edition graphics card is priced at around 300€.

Club3D announced its Radeon HD 6950 1 GB graphics card (model no.: CGAX-69524F). Making use of a completely in-house design by Club3D, the card uses a red PCB that is 10.5 inches long, and a custom-design cooling assembly that uses a large aluminum fin heatsink to cool the GPU, ventilated by two 80 mm spinners. The card uses 1 GB of memory over a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. It uses AMD-reference clock speeds of 800 MHz core and 1250 MHz (5.00 GHz effective) memory. Like every other HD 6950, it features 1408 stream processors. Display outputs are standard, two each of DVI and mini-DisplayPort 1.2, one HDMI 1.4a. Club3D did not give out pricing information.

ASUS has launched an entire range of DirectCU II-enhanced graphics cards that include the latest technologies from both AMD and NVIDIA GPU rosters. On the AMD side, ASUS offers the HD 6970 and HD 6950 graphics cards with DirectCU II while for NVIDIA, the GTX 580, GTX 570 and new GTX 560 Ti all ship with the advanced cooling technology.

Based on ASUS DirectCU, which uses copper heat pipes in direct contact with the GPU core for up to 20% cooler performance, DirectCU II adds a custom cooler that uses twin 100mm fans for a massive 600% increase in airflow on HD 6970, HD 6950, GTX 580, and GTX 570 DirectCU II cards. ASUS has also launched the GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP graphics card with dual 80mm fans for the best performance in its segment through doubled air power.

Hightech Information System Limited launches its HIS 6970 & 6950 Fan Turbo 2GB GDDR5 graphics card. Offering the latest and greatest features like AMD Eyefinity technology,
AMD HD3D technology and DirectX 11 support, the new 6900 Turbo Series provides flawless image quality and unbelievable performance to the gamers at every advantages. The HIS 6950 Turbo has over-clocked its core clock speed to 840MHz and memory clock at 5,120MHz, delivering serious high-definition gaming frame rates.

The HIS 6970 Turbo supplies the same 2GB GDDR5 but at a maximum core clock speed of 900MHz and memory clock of 5,600MHz. The utmost speed will let you enjoy the high resolution and fast frame rates which directly translate into superior performance and ultra-high bandwidth.

AMD finalized its recalibrated product pricing of Radeon HD 6800 and Radeon HD 6900 series products in the wake of NVIDIA's launch of the GeForce GTX 560 Ti later today. NVIDIA's new GPU is expected to revive the green giant's competitiveness at a key sub-$300 price-point, which could destabilize AMD's SKUs in the price-proximity. Without many options left, AMD is setting the following new prices (EUR and USD):

• Radeon HD 6870 1 GB: 189.99€, $219
• Radeon HD 6950 1 GB: 225.00€, $259
• Radeon HD 6950 2 GB: 239.99€, $269~289

The prices should be in effect very soon. Prices apart, AMD will also release a new driver that will bring about considerable performance improvements to all Radeon HD 6000 series GPUs.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, announces a dual mode setting design in the HD 6950 series: the PowerColor PCS++ HD6950. The PowerColor PCS++ HD6950 features a dual BIOS setting, allowing a bump in performance with factory overclocking to at 880MHz core speed and 1250MHz memory speed. The bump enables performance to increase out its own segment and maximize gaming experience like never before.

The PCS++ HD6950 also has embedded with a back up setting, easily delivering the extreme performance to tackle the game titles. Gamers can manually switch the different settings to meet their own demands.

In the wake of impending competition from NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560Ti, AMD is busy fine-tuning its performance-segment offer. It is lowering prices of Radeon HD 6950 with the introduction of a new 1 GB variant, and reportedly working on Radeon HD 6870 "Turbo" models. Combined with the two, AMD is also planning a new driver which is out and out focussed on performance enhancements for Radeon HD 6000 series GPUs.

Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix introduces performance improvements specific to Radeon HD 6800 and HD 6900 series, in turn specific to games. One can expect performance improvements of up to 35% with Anti-Aliasing in some games. Catalyst 11.1a is also going to give users full control over the way the driver handles tessellation, allowing users to override applications' tessellation settings (much like AA and AF). In the future, there's also scope for an AMD-optimised tessellation setting that adjusts tessellation detail to give the best details with minimal performance impact.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix Update

A list of changes follows.

Here are the first pictures of a Gigabyte branded NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card. Carrying the model number GV-N560OC-1GI, Gigabyte's card is based on the 40 nanometer GF114 GPU, featuring 384 CUDA cores, and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory. The card itself doesn't look much different from some of Gigabyte's GTX 460 graphics cards. This can be attributed to the rumor that GF114 is pin-compatible with GF104, to minimize R&D costs partners have to incur. They would probably just have to use the new GPU and its appropriate BIOS.

Being an "OC" marked model, Gigabyte's card could feature factory-overclocked speeds. Taking this and the GPU itself into account, Gigabyte claims its GTX 560 Ti card to be competitive with Radeon HD 6950. The card uses Gigabyte's Ultra Durable VGA construction which combines a copper-rich PCB with high-quality components, and is cooled by the company's in-house design WindForce2X GPU cooler that uses a large aluminum fin heatsink using two fans.

Update (01/18): Gigabyte commented on this article. The company outright denied to have anything to do with whatever is in those pictures, and alleged it to be some kind of a "malicious attack" on it. In a statement, it said: "the information is false and the data is simulated from our old card. The picture is incorrect and was obviously photoshopped from our previous GTX460 model. The GTX560 card looks nothing like pictured on the article. We have good reason to believe this is a malicious attack."

HIS unveiled one of its first Radeon HD 6950 1 GB graphics cards. The HIS HD 6950 1 GB Fan Edition features AMD's high-end GPU with 1 GB of memory, and a cost-effective design that makes it competitive with upcoming GeForce GTX 560 Ti. HIS used its own design PCB that's shorter in length, and uses cost-effective VRM since the card isn't dealing with high-density 2 Gbit GDDR5 memory chips anymore. It uses a GPU fan-heatsink that uses a large fan to ventilate an aluminum fin array that cools the GPU and other components. the cooler is covered by a well-ventilated shroud.

That and the memory aside, other specifications are the same: the 40 nm Cayman GPU features 1408 VLIW4 stream processors, and connects to 1 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface. The core is clocked at 800 MHz, and the memory at 1250 MHz (5.00 GHz GDDR5 effective). HIS did not release pricing yet, but it will be well below the $300 mark.

About a decade ago when programmable shaders were new, NVIDIA identified its first graphics processors that used them under the GeForce 3 series and 4 series with the "Ti" marker (for example, GeForce 4 Ti 4800), to demarcate them from mainstream "MX" series, which lacked them (eg. GeForce 4 MX 440). Exactly a decade later, there are faint indications that NVIDIA is reintroducing the Ti marker. This was found out on close examination of a leaked 266.44 GeForce driver, which recognized an unreleased NVIDIA GPU as GeForce GTX 560 Ti. This baffles us. To begin with, this doesn't seem like a notebook GPU, second, we don't know of anything big in works at NVIDIA. One plausible explanation we can come up with is that NVIDIA is using "Ti" to simply make its GTX 560 SKU "look" presentable on paper, especially since the SKU may face competition from Radeon HD 6950 1 GB the moment it's released.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti is being introduced to restore competitiveness to NVIDIA in the sub-$270 "performance" segment, after it was depleted by AMD's introduction of the Radeon HD 6870 and Radeon HD 6850. With GTX 560 seeming imminent, AMD is preparing two new SKUs, Radeon HD 6950 1GB and HD 6970 1GB, which, coupled with cost-effective board designs, are expected to significantly drive down prices, restoring AMD's competitiveness in the crucial market segment. The GeForce GTX 560 Ti is based on new GF114 silicon, features 384 CUDA, a 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface, and core clock speeds of 820 MHz. The new SKU is slated for January 25th.

While it may not have toppled NVIDIA's fastest single-GPU graphics card, AMD's Radeon HD 6900 series sure stepped up competition in the high-end segment, with Radeon HD 6970 competing with GeForce GTX 570, and the HD 6950, which can be unlocked to the HD 6970, having a class of its own. To further increase competitiveness, and probably to ward off the GeForce GTX 560 threat, AMD is reportedly directing partners to add 1 GB variants of the HD 6950 and HD 6970.

Currently 2 GB of GDDR5 memory is standard for both SKUs. With half the memory and cost-effective choice of PCB and components, AMD partners can significantly reduce prices at the expense of some performance, but end up with equal or better price-performance ratios to GTX 570 and the upcoming GTX 560. The two new SKUs will be available soon. Pictured below is a Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB. Sapphire is said to be one of the first with HD 6900 1 GB series.

AMD is planning a revised Radeon HD 6900 series reference-design PCB. It is reported that the delays which short-supply of TI-made driver-MOSFETs caused have been tided over with, giving AMD the opportunity to redesign the PCB to make use of the more cost-effective yet high-performance VRM circuitry. AMD is reported to have used expensive Volterra-made digital PWM chippery in a last-ditch effort to release the Radeon HD 6900 series in time for the X'mas shopping season, after TI-made VRM components couldn't make it to foundry-partners in time (which caused the launch delay in November, 2010). The redesigned PCB with its new TI-made driver-MOSFETs (DrMOS) could also present an opportunity for AMD to patch the Radeon HD 6950, making stream processor unlocking using BIOS flash impossible, notes the source. This development surfaced after water-cooling major Swiftech announced that it delayed the launch of its Radeon HD 6900 series full-coverage water block because AMD is revising its PCB design.

Water-cooling specialist Koolance announced its full-coverage water block that's common for AMD Radeon HD 6970 and Radeon HD 6950 graphics accelerators. The VID-AR697 from Koolance measures 6.25" x 5.75" x 0.62" (15.9cm x 14.6cm x 1.6cm), weighing 1.5 pounds (680 g). Its primary material is nickel-plated copper, with acetal top. Tailored for AMD reference-design PCB, it offers full-coverage, cooling all heat producing components including the GPU, memory chips, and VRM. It uses a 0.5 mm micro-fin array over the GPU for better heat dissipation. The block uses standard G 1/4 BSP threading. The Koolance VID-AR697 is priced at US $114.99.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today announces its own design HD6900 series solution. Featuring all the latest technology, the PowerColor HD6900 series includes the HD6970 and HD6950. The HD6970 clocks at 880MHz core speed and 1375MHz memory speed, easily accelerating your PC with up to 2.7 teraFLOPs of computing power. The HD6950 clocks at 800MHz core speed and 1250MHz memory speed, enabling the demanding gamers to be flawlessly presented.

The PowerColor HD 6900 series has equipped with unique dual fan cooling solution; built with two ultra big 9.2cm cooling fans and 8ø heat pipes, it can easily dissipate heat produced from the GPU, easily cools down the temperature in a low-noise working environment. The latest series also takes advantage of power efficient features, consuming only 190W at load, enabling immersive HD gaming experience in the minimal power consumed.

TechPowerUp today introduced version 0.5.0 of GPU-Z, our popular graphics subsystem diagnostic utility that provides you with detailed tech-specs of your installed graphics processors, and lets you monitor clock speeds, voltages, temperatures and fan speeds. Version 0.50 adds full-support for Radeon HD 6950 and Radeon HD 6970. It fixes several stability and reliability issues, including fillrate roundoff errors, improved voltage monitoring support for GeForce GTX 570, some crashes and freezes.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.5.0

A complete list of changes follows.

Looks like Santa brought an extra present for us hardware enthusiasts this year. Thanks to a less secure locking method AMD's new Radeon HD 6950 can be unlocked to a full blown HD 6970 with a few mouse clicks.

As detailed in our article, you can safely perform the flashing process from within Windows. In case something goes wrong it is easier than ever to recover the card thanks to AMD's new Dual-BIOS feature.

We tested the unlock on three HD 6950 cards: one AMD engineering sample, one HIS media sample and one ASUS retail card. All of them unlocked perfectly and run at HD 6970 speeds now. More success reports are compiled into a table at the end of the modding article.

NVIDIA is readying a new GPU to counter the Radeon HD 6950. Released earlier this month, reviews suggest that the HD 6950 managed to slip into a sweet-spot between GeForce GTX 470 and GeForce GTX 570/Radeon HD 5970, giving buyers an option for around $300. NVIDIA's counter to this is named GeForce GTX 560, it is based on the new 40 nm silicon. While specifications-wise, this GPU is identical to the GF104, it is redesigned to allow high-clock speeds with lower power draw, the same secret-sauce that went into making GF110 is applied here.

The GeForce GTX 560 features 384 CUDA cores, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide memory interface that connects to 1 GB of memory. The new GPU has bolstered high GPU clock speeds, with 820 MHz core, 1640 MHz CUDA cores, and 4000 MHz (GDDR5 effective) memory, churning out 128 GB/s memory bandwidth. NVIDIA however, isn't in a hurry with its release, it has the GTX 560 slated for some time in January, 2011.

AMD today released the first hotfix update to the recently released Catalyst 10.12 driver suite. A hotfix is an interim update before the next driver release. The new hotfix introduces two important things: first, it adds official support for the newly-released AMD Radeon HD 6970 and AMD Radeon HD 6950 graphics cards; and second, it adds a new Eyefinity mode that lets you use all five display outputs on the HD 6000 series graphics cards (i.e. two DVI, two mini-DP, one HDMI) for a 5 x 1 Eyefinity configuration.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 10.12a Hotfix Update